Riddles of Time
by sora kazega
Summary: He wasn't suposed to be here, or exist here for that matter. He did though, and really that was the crux of the matter. He knew how he got here, but he didn't KNOW how he got here. One thing was certain: nothing would be the same. He'd make sure of that.
1. Prologue: Smile

**Disclaimer:** dont own HJP or anything else JKR came up with. I'd not be here otherwise.

**AN:** Hello people! I know, i know... " WHAT ANOHTER STORY! You still havent updated any of your others!" but i had to do this! THis story has been bothering me for so long that i just HAD to do something with it! And I promise, an update for one of my other stories will come! Oh yeah this story is an AT, thought u might want to know that... Ah well tell me what you think! So plz R&R, even a flame will do! Enjoy. -SK

Riddles

He smiled. He smiled in the face of death. He knew of the green light, the color of his own eyes streaking towards him. Coming ever closer, but his smile never wavered. He didn't even pay it any attention. His wary and tired eyes emerald colored eyes meeting confused and innocent ones. All masks and illusions fallen away. All riddles solved. He remembered now, he knew now and he accepted it.

Time.

Time had stopped as their eyes were locked. Past and present? He didn't know it anymore, but he knew this: it was going to end. Finally end! And really that was all that mattered, the other knew it too.

He focussed his eyes on his ticket to peace. He saw it , he saw everything. In that split second when it hit him. He remembered how it had all started.

And so he smiled.


	2. Chapter 1

**AN: **I know its a bit short, but here the update for Riddles of time. Have finals n all, well tell me what you think. Oh and soon a Beta'd version will be uploaded! :)

**Disclaimer: **I am male and thus not JKR, thus i dont own any of her characters or creations.

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><p><span>Bloody Sunday<span>

With a start green eyes opened to see grey skies, rain dripping along the brick walls of the alley. He groaned, and closed his eyes trying to stop the world from spinning. He knew this feeling, it was after you had fallen a considerable distance and hit the ground rather hard. He felt like shit; his back and left leg hurting and his stomach was rebelling furiously. He slowly opened them again to see grey skies and brick walls. Where the hell was he, this wasn't where he was supposed to be! He was supposed to be in.. and like that his mind rebooted.

He shot up, only to trip and fall on his face, cracking his glasses. He wanted to curse but all that came out was the meager lunch he'd had. He now had a way of transportation that he hated more than portkeys or time turners! The question being what that transportation method was, or where he was for that matter. As he dry heaved a bit more, he felt wet droplets fall on him. It had started to drizzle. He'd never felt this vulnerable, this miserable before. His glasses were completely useless now, not mentioning he didn't have his wand. He was somewhere and he had no idea where that was, or how he could get back. On top of that he'd just been told why his life had sucked for the last 15 years, by the man he respected most! Wait.. maybe! He started frantically feeling around for something solid, something gold. He did find something gold, gold dust. Well, FUCK!

Okay he needed to calm down. So he could not go back the same way, not that he'd want to anyway, that had been a horrible experience! Now he supposed the best option was asking someone where here was, because it wasn't Hogwarts. A large grunt and he got up, took one step and tripped again, this time hurting his hands. He loudly cursed and looked down at his feet, only to see his trousers, blurry at that. The fuck? He knew his clothes didn't fit him the best of times, but this was ridiculous! He looked at his hands only to see sleeves. He shouted bloody murder at that. It seemed it did more than just transport you, it stretched your clothes! Just fucking great! Bloody great transportation methods these wizards came up with! Hopefully this was only temporary, otherwise the old man would have hell to pay! These were his best normal clothes! He rolled up his sleeves and pants and saw only a blurry outline of his hands, well at least they were still attached. Getting up again while grumbling about stupid golden orbs and trinkets. He walked slowly, holding the wet wall for support. After what seemed like forever he had existed the alley, and come to an open street, a few cars passing. Cars, that meant he was in a muggle city, preferably still in England. No pedestrians seemed to be out, most likely because of the damned weather. He now had to go either left or right. He chose right, maybe something would go right then. Its not as if this day could get much worse.

He kept on walking, passing door after door. The drizzle had turned into a light poor by now. He had no idea what time it was, the grey clouds not telling him anything. It didn't improve his mood in the slightest, angry puffy red eyes stared ahead. As he looked around everything seemed bigger, not that he saw much with these useless glasses. The kept slipping off his face too! He once more came at an in-pass and chose left this time. He also finished this street, and he continued walking on and on, the weather ever worsening. It was a few hours and many streets later that he came to a shopping district. His mood had not improved at all, he was wet, tired, cold, hungry and he hurt all over. The limp in his leg had increased, causing him to fall multiple times on his trek. He'd put the glasses in his pockets long ago, they were broken as if his fat cousin had sat on them. The worst part being that the depressing atmosphere didn't allow him to forget the last 24 hours.

It was on this street that he met the first person all day. It was a man, one that towered over him like the grounds keeper did. He held an umbrella and stopped to look at him. Details he could not make out, all he saw was a blurry image. Finally the man spoke, a soft deep rumbling voice. " Boy what are you doing out on this day, shouldn't you be home with your parents?" A British accent thank Merlin, he was still in Britain! But the joy was not enough to wash away his foul mood so he went straight to the point: " I don't have any parents, or family left. They're all dead." he said monotonously.

" Sir can you tell me where I am?" Odd, his voice sounded odd.

"Oh thats sad to hear lad and your on Carnaby street." That improved his mood somewhat, he was in London! He also wanted to know how long he'd been unconscious for.

" Sir, could you also tell me the time and date?"

" You don't know much do you lad?" He shook his head, he didn't have a fucking clue.

"Well its 4 o' clock, Saturday, 19th of June,"

Two days, he'd been knocked out for 2 days? That'd explain his voice, he'd probably caught a cold

"1965."

Green eyes widened.

" 1965?" he whispered and stumbled only holding himself up by holding on to the shop's window. He looked into it and his eyes widened even more, his mouth dropping open. He made a strange gurgling noise and right before he fainted he knew he'd been wrong about this day being horrible. It was a fucking nightmare!


	3. Chapter 2

**AN: I finally got some inspiration for this story, so here's the new chapter. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Im male, thus not J.K Rowling, thus i dont Harry Potter**

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><p><span>Noteworthy<span>

8:00 AM, 17th of June 1965, London, Department of Mysteries

Andrew Hickelberry, an unspeakable, sat at his desk looking at the a map that was spread on it. He was in his late thirties, young for an unspeakable, and bored out of his mind. He'd thought being an unspeakable was adventure, looking into the deepest and most important magics, not unlike a curse-breaker. That had been a wrong assumption, he loved the reading no doubt, but the times he'd actually had to do anything worth while were few and far between. He supposed though that he'd have to actually be here for more than 5 years to join the experiments which were happening deeper inside the department of mysteries. His current job consisted of looking at large magical disturbances, on the map that was in front of him, and telling his superiors where they took place. The times these happenings popped up was a minimal of twice every 3 years, not much at all. He'd been out to two that had happened, the first had been in his second year here. It had been a calm night but in that forest, the magic he'd felt, it had been incredible. The adrenaline it sent pumping through you, the hum of the energy that consumed all, sometimes even a glimpse of a majestical swirl of energy. How the trees had swayed along with the flow of the ambient energy. That had been a try at the illegal and long gone practice of Druidism by a middle-aged wizard. He'd been unable to maintain it and had fainted due to exhaustion, never finishing the ritual. Even if a failed try, and damaging to the practicer's own magical core, it was the most beautiful magic Andrew had ever witnessed. It was intoxicating, awe-inspiring, it was magic at its very purest.

Druidism: to become more one with magic and nature than they already were. A form of magic only rumored about, mythological even. It only existed in tales of old, it was the practice of the ancients, lost through the ages. That display of magic had been an emulation, the try of a man at something long gone from this world. There was a very good reason as for why even emulating it was illegal: it was suicidal. Most cases didn't up as good as this one. No, most died from magical exhaustion, others became crazy, and the worst of the lot became something not of this world. That last case had been his second outing as an unspeakable, and truly what he'd seen there had been... unspeakable.

A horror.

The cries of the man, no _thing_ ,still haunted him. The magic he'd felt there had been anything but awe-inspiring. It had been dark, suffocating, and vile. It had showed him that magic was far from all good, something he had never realized in his school years.

It was as he was reminiscing about his school years that a dot appeared on the map, not just any dot, a red one. You had three colors: green, red and black. Green was for small, but powerful burst of magic. Red on the other hand indicated that it was a large, a very large burst of magic. Now, the problem with red dots was that they covered a large area, about 25 km to be precise. It wasn't that the magic was particularly dangerous, they'd have had a black dot in that case, just that there was a lot of it. The most worrying fact about this red dot was that it was situated in a muggle inhabited place. If that wasn't worrying enough, it was in the largest city of England, London. Time to notify the MDDF, and so Andrew pressed a button he had not pressed in almost 2 years.

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><p>3:50 PM, 19th of June, London, Small Company<p>

_Tap. Tap. Tap._ Joseph Williamson sighed as he looked at the droplets of water hit his office window, sometimes he truly hated the weather in London. He was a rather tall man, even sitting behind his desk this was a noticeable fact. He was in his late forties with brown hair that had a few specks of grey, to his own dismay, and his youngest's amusement. Striking bleu eyes watched the grey skies a moment longer before scanning the document in hand once again. He worked at a small company, nothing grand but he loved it. He got along well with his boss and colleagues, although some of the younger ones did get on his nerves every once in a while. His office was not as nice as his boss' but than it needn't be, Joseph wasn't that materialistic a man. What he did care about however was his family, which was evident from the many pictures that were found in his workspace. Four in total, each one a different stage of his life. He and his wife on their wedding day, his two daughters when they were five and six respectively, another of them all together on vacation in France and the last showing his eldest graduating college. He heard a knock on his door and said: "Come in." A small blonde woman with horn-rimmed glasses entered. Cassandra Gallaway, his boss's secretary. She might be shorter than him, but was very capable of cowing him. She was as strict as could get, a no-nonsense women to the very bone.

"Good afternoon Mrs. Gallaway. How can I help you today?" said Joseph, his deep voice rumbling through the air.

"Good afternoon Mr. Williamson. I have a simple task for you." she stated in a tone that rebuked no argument, not that he wanted to start one in the first place.

" Alright what would this task be?" asked Joseph while he signed the paper with a flourish. He had had his suspicions that it would require an umbrella. She only asked him out of his office for help if one of their employees was sick, this mostly being one Jacob Hall. The poor man had the worst immune system that Joseph knew of. Since Jacob was the man that got packages from the post office two blocks away, this would lead to the logical conclusion of having to traverse outside in this horrible weather.

" Once again Mr. Hall is absent so" - bingo - " if you could please get this taken care of at Bakers street number 5 that would be appreciated." She handed him a file with the data. He looked it over and sighed, why his boss kept on insisting that they do it in person and not by phone, he would never know.

" Alright, I'll do it." conceded the big man while getting up.

"Thank you as always Mr. Williamson. Especially with this weather" said the prim woman as she opened the door.

"No problem Mrs. Gallaway, I just hope it calms down when I have the box to carry." He put his coat on and grabbed his umbrella.

" That I do as well Mr. Williamson, and thank you once again." she spoke as she walked down the corridor.

Joseph locked the door and went in the opposite direction, going down two floors and eventually out into the pouring rain. The street and sidewalk were already filled with puddles, large and small. He kept on walking, from Jackson street to Carnabary Street. This was by far the longest road of the whole area, at the end of which he'd have to turn right finally arriving on Bakers street. He had yet to meet anyone, but than this weather was anything but inviting. It was while he was cursing Jacob Hall for chasing him out of his comfortable office that he came across the first sign of human life. It was however not what he had expected, he'd expected a man like himself, coat and all. What was in front of him was anything but a man, it was child. A small black haired child that seemed to stumble along. When they were close to each other he asked the boy the question that had been bothering him the last of his large strides.

" Boy what are you doing out on this day, shouldn't you be home with your parents?"

No child should be outside in this weather, least of all in the clothes this boy wore. A long sleeved shirt, that he practically swam in, and which was drenched and clung to the child's skin. Furthermore those jeans, which he and his daughters had had fights over, didn't seem to fit any better. The lad's eyes were shadowed by a mop of black hair that wad weighed down by the rain. The size of the child indicated that he was about 5 or six years old.

" I don't have any parents, or family left. They're all dead." came the child's voice, cracking at the end.

The poor lad, an orphan. He was about to ask if he knew which orphanage he belonged to, he'd probably run away when the boy asked him: " Sir, can you tell me where I am?" it came out bitter, and the boy frowned even more as a shiver went trough his young body.

"Oh thats sad to hear lad and your on Carnaby street." the reaction was almost small but immediate, the down turned lips curled up slightly.

In a tone less bitter: " Sir, could you also tell me the time and date?"

Joseph smiled in a sad way and said: " You don't know much do you lad?" The boy shook his head in answer.

"Well, its 4 o' clock on the 19th of June, 1965." The boy nodded, seemingly agreeing until he suddenly swayed on his feet. The tall man was about to help when the boy caught himself on the window of glass, and muttered something, probably a curse or two. The boy was about to stand up straight again when he stared at the window, gurgled and plain fainted. In a hurry he dropped his umbrella and checked up on the boy as good as he could. Rash breathing and heating up, a cold if not a light form of hypothermia. Bakers street 5 could wait, the hospital on St. Andrews road needed a visit.

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><p>6:00 PM, 19th of June, London, Alleyway<p>

A drenched Peter Prattle kicked the brick wall of the Alley in utter frustration. The black haired man was part of the Magical Disturbance Disbandment Force, and not just part but team leader! He was the best of the best, the 'creme de la creme'! Yet it had taken them two days to find the epicenter of the magical disturbance. Two fucking, miserable days! The horrible weather far from helped them in pinpointing the source, and the thick magic kept on messing up their spells. The fact that some muggle appliances had been affected by it was a time consuming nuisance, but that wasn't why he had just kicked a brick wall. No, the worst, the absolute worst part was that now that they had found the epicenter of the disturbance that there was, at this epicenter, simply nothing. Not a single trace. No ritual carvings, no blood, no smell of plants, no vibe of dark magic! Even his accomplished team consisting of a top arithmetic, a knowledgeable rune-master, a dark ritual specialist, a top tracker and finally there was he himself a former curse-breaker. They had so far found nothing but an utterly thick residue of ambiguous magic! The only good thing that could be said about this whole case had been that the weather kept most muggles inside their houses, saving the MDDF a lot of time. The black haired man swished his wand again, in the hope that this identification spell would do something, even an explosion would be a welcome sight. It was not to be as once again nothing happened, or so the angry man thought as he shouted profanities.

He was wrong, something did happen. Right above him, about 10 meters to be sure, the air glowed a faint gold. The point was that the grey clouds overshadowed it, and that the wizards weren't looking up. Why would they? To them Magic wasn't supposed to, couldn't act like this case did. This is because they thought it needed a physical anchor to be this stationary, like a rune for example. Had they looked up they would have seen a tiny rip, outlined by gold color due to the spell, leading into a dark yet ever-changing space. The identification spells though drained the rip, slowly but surely closing it. Half an hour and many spells later it would be gone, its existence unknown to anyone. The team would stay another day and then go back to HQ in a foul mood, having found nothing. This incident would be termed by many in the MDDF as the "Hickelberry fluke". Hickelberry himself though, thoroughly harassed and embarrassed about it, would return every few years, wanting to prove himself right. That yes, he'd seen the red dot, that it had not been a fluke. He would only ever find a single grain of gold dust, which would, years after his death, lead to a leap forward in the area of Timeturners. No one though would relate it back to the incident itself, since it was, despite having happened, nothing noteworthy.

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><p>2:00 PM, 21st of June, London, St. Andrews hospital<p>

A young woman entered a white, sterile room carrying a bowl of warm water and a washcloth slung over her arm. She moved to the only bed occupying the room and pulled aside the curtains. She sighed as she looked down at the small black-haired boy that lay under the covers. Two days had passed and Stephanie Wallace still had to see her young patient wake up. His condition had improved though. He no longer shivered almost constantly and his breathing was calm, no longer erratic. No, it wasn't the light version of hypothermia that she was worried about, it were other signs on her young charge that were far more worrisome. He was horribly undernourished, his ribs clearly showing, and to add to it his left leg was broken in two places, how the boy had moved at all was a miracle. Furthermore his back had a large spot on it, as if it had been hit with something hard. Lastly he had a plethora of older scars, the one on his right wrist making her worry the most. If those weren't signs of child abuse, and maybe suicidal tendencies, than Stepanie didn't know what was. She might not be a doctor yet, but as a nurse she knew her stuff. With a large frown on her young face she dipped the cloth in water and wiped it over the child's sweating forehead. How could someone starve a child, their own or not, and beat him to the point of wanting to commit suicide? It was simply too horrible for her to even start to comprehend. It was as she dipped the cloth into the water for the second time that the first sound passed the boys lips. It was a soft groan. The child's eyes fluttered open slowly only to close just as fast, a louder groan escaping him. She watched in interest as the child tried again, this time succeeding and her breath caught as she saw the emerald orbs the child possessed. She was so focussed on them that she almost missed the rasp of: "w-water." Snapping out of her little daze she stood up to get him some water, and an actual doctor.

Harry Potter groaned as consciousness returned to him. He surmised in the first minute of this state that he did not feel good, at all. His throat was burning, completely parched and his body ached everywhere, most of all his left leg. His still addled brain seemed to finally be able to tell him that he had felt something warm pass over his head and now he clearly heard the slight rustling of clothes beside him. At the same time a sterile, flat smell hit his nose which caused him to open his eyes. This task was easier said than done because his eyelids were heavy with sleep. Groggily he opened his eyes and instantly regretted the action, blinded by white. Harry groaned and scrunched them shut again, the only place rooms were ever this glaringly white and had that odd smell was in hospitals. He'd been in enough to know that by now. He slowly tried again, and this time succeeded, only to see a large white blur. God how he hated the uselessness of his eyes, that could wait however, the need for water could not. As the words left his dry and cracked lips, he heard the person next to him move in away in a hurry, probably to get the liquid he so desired. It was as he lay here waiting for the person to return that he tried to remember why he would be landed in a hospital. Jumbled snippets of memories shot through his mind: spells flung at him, laughter in front of a fountain, tears running down his face, a flash of bright light, the slow burn of hatred, a pain unlike any other ripping through his body, a walk through rainy streets, something shattering into pieces, the roar of fire, dark corridors, a tin soldier, a rumbling voice, the rushing of the wind, a reflection that couldn't be. Had he not been traversing down memory lane he might have heard them enter, and he might have stopped the tears that were dripping down his cheeks.

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><p>Philip Sterr was an aging man, his hair already completely grey. His brown eyes though shined with a lively joy that few could rival. He was by nature a loving man and as such he had become a doctor. It was thus that he was walking towards room 305 with Nurse Wallace by his side. He remembered when that overly tall man had rushed into the hospital with a small and wet, form in his arms. He remembered that the man had said that the boy was most likely an orphan who'd run away. He loved helping people for it brought him unbounded joy and was thus prepared to help the boy in room 305. Sadly his job didn't only consist of moments of joy and rejoicing, no that was wishful thinking on his part. Life wasn't a fairy tale, sometimes it didn't end well. He absolutely loathed this particular part of his job, even after so many years under his belt it didn't get easier; the giving of bad news. Whether this be to his patients themselves or their family, he could not stand it. The falling of expression, the dimming of the eyes, but most of all the sight of a tears. Philip always felt horrible because he always felt like an intruder, audience to something that he was not privy to. This how he felt right now, extremely so, as he looked at a young tearstained face with sorrowful green eyes. The expression in them, it did not belong on one so young. It shouldn't, this look of utter loss and betrayal. But it was and it tugged at his old heart. However as soon as he spoke the expression was gone, those vulnerable eyes replaced by unemotional blocks of jade. He knew better though than to mention the fact that, to ask why, the boy had cried. Nurse Wallace looked like she wanted to do exactly that and he stopped her. They had already seen something they probably shouldn't have, for now that was enough. And if he were honest with himself, they probably didn't want to know.<p>

"Here's your water." and he helped his patient drink it. " More" rasped a young voice, and he obliged. 5 cups of water later the boy seemed to be sated, for now. The boy wanted to sit up and Philip helped, even if it looked like the boy loathed it. "Thank you." said the boy, his voice young still a bit rough from the ordeal his body had to deal with. The tone was anything but thankful, the doctor though took what he could get from the seemingly bitter youth. " No problem my boy." The child seemed to jolt at that, he wondered why.

With a frown the boy asked" Sir, can I have my glasses?"

" Im afraid those are broken beyond repair." They'd found them in the boy's jeans, crushed, and bent, held together only by tape.

They boys frowned even deeper and grumbled for a minute before speaking again.

" Where is here?"

"St. Andrews Hospital, London. You got brought here by a gentleman who found you lying in the rain."

That seemed to jog the boys memory, because his eyes widened. For a moment again the orbs showed emotion, confusion being paramount amongst them.

" Oh, uhmm for how long have I been out?"

" Two days. Its the 21st of June."

" What year?" an odd question, but he'd been asked weirder things by children.

"1965." Philip supplied. The boy closed his eyes and muttered under his breath.

" Well I've answered all your questions, how about you answer some of mine?"

The boy opened his eyes, they were again showing nothing but their color. " Okay." he sounded like he would rather do anything but.

" Whats your name, or do you want me to call you patient 305?" maybe some humor would help the kid crack a smile.

Harry Potter looked calm on the outside, on the inside it was a whole different story. He was panicking claws of unconsciousness tried to pull him in, but he stubbornly refused. He also kept his breathing even with great difficulty, after all it wouldn't do to faint. The man had already seen him crying, that was more than most could say. It was through all of this that his mind kept repeating one thing: 1965. He was stuck in bloody 1965. It shouldn't be possible, in fact it was down right impossible! Time turners could only go back a few hours at most, and that was after almost a hundred years of research, years was positively preposterous! Then there was the fact he hadn't ever possessed a time-turner. What was even more ludicrous and panic inducing was the fact that he had, in effect, shrunk. His hand was small compared to the doctor's, even he with his blurry vision could distinguish that. How could he have ended up in.. and with growing horror he realized exactly how. The golden orb he'd tried to thrown to the floor in his anger and how it had practically imploded in his hand. He realized also, to his utter distress, that any way of getting back was plenty impossible: all that was left was dust. It was so that 15 year old Harry Potter, The Boy-Who Lived came to the conclusion that he was stuck in the year of 1965, as a child no less. Now he might have realized that fact, but he also realized that if he spouted that to the doctor he'd get sent to the mental asylum. The man wanted to know his name, which wasn't too surprising, but there was just a slight problem with that: he wasn't born yet. Neither could he fool this man by spouting the name of one his classmates, like he had done in his third year to use the night bus, because they didn't exist here either. It was as he turned over his mind for a good name that one popped up. He'd created it in his youth, in the darkness of the cupboard. He'd imagined running away and changing his name to something else, since his parents had been drunks ( for that is what he'd been told) and it would forever connect him to the Dursleys, and living the life. It was the name of a child who had broken the chains he never had.

"Adam Trapler"

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><p><strong> Hope you enjoyed it and sorry for the delay on the story, but it just wouldn't flow correctly. R&amp;R please!<strong>

**-SK**


	4. Chapter 3

**AN**: A thank you to serialkeller for reminding me to shape up this chapter as I had intended to, that ending had not been satifactory at first. A note on our dear protagonist at the end of this chapter.

**Disclaimer_:_** I do own the world that J.K. Rowling wrought in her books. I however do play with it for it is such an enjoyable pass time!

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><p><span>What's in a name?<span>

_"Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike."_

_-Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore_

10: 00 AM, 21st of June, 1965, Scotland, Moray

The sun shone, the mountains in the beautiful Scottish highlands casting their shadows as far as they could. North of these great snowcapped sentinels, along the length of the River Fiddich lay the Burgh of Dufftown, which was part of Moray, one of the 32 council areas of their great country. The inhabitants of the town,which they proudly called the "Whisky capitol of the World" and not completely biased either for it was to be found on the famed Whisky Trail, were merrily working on this summers day, busy preparing for the Highland Games which were to be held in July. Tents were being set up, Cabers and stones being hewn for the tosses, Celtic attires being washed and put on once again, dancing and bagpipe playing skills being dusted off and not to forget the brewing of Ale and the distilling of Scotch Whiskey by the William Grant & Sons.

It was usually held near the town, but one of the older traditions of this particular Highlands Games was to ramble towards a loch that was to be found some 80 kilometers to the south and spend one night there near a ruin of a castle that had been established sometime in the ninth or tenth century, which was surrounded by a according to folklore haunted forrest in which will-o'-the-wisps and other such beings dwelt.

As they say, in every myth there is a grain of truth, this tale was no exception to that rule. That forrest was indeed the dwelling place of creatures of magical sort. Furthermore what most eyes saw as a ruin was in actuality a still very much intact castle, though its exterior was worn with age. This castle was Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Thus befitting it's title as one of the leading school in the arcane arts the illusion of it being a ruin was caused by them. The same went for the repelling effect that most without the ability to use those arcane arts felt when they got too close.

The large castle which was usually filled with many people of differing ages was now almost completely deserted except for the ghosts who took their residence there. This was due to the fact that the school year had ended and the vacation had just started. It was thus not surprising that not one living soul was aware of a most unusual act taking place within this unusual castle.

In a cabinet of the Deputy head's office in one of the largest tomes to be found in the building, which had been collecting dust over the year and would not be opened for another month, a name was being written. Now that in itself was not odd as recording names is what the magic of the tome was meant to do. The odd part about it was that it was writing a name on the page labeled '_The honorable year of 1971', _which it had completed the year before as those named on the page would be going to the institute it was located at seven years after those very names had been recorded.

The number seven is after all a magical amplifier.

So as such that it was writing a name on a page that had been allegedly finished was quite peculiar. Even more so was the name, for there was already one with that surname listed. Indeed, right below James Potter in spidery letters it read Harry James Potter.

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><p>4:25 PM, 5th of July, London, St. Andrews Hospital<p>

Stephanie Wallace walked at a sedate pace down the halls of St. Andrews Hospital. A contemplative look on her young face, lost in thought as she walked into the nurses lounge. The lounge was average in size and had a much needed coffee machine as well as a teapot for those who favored the traditional English drink, although theoretically it had been invented in ancient China and most of the spices came from India.

A sofa and few chairs occupied it some of which were situated in front of the television, a few of her colleagues being amused by it. Another few were standing by the coffee machine holding a conversation, though that was most likely just the newest gossip. Yes, even this medical institute had its grape vine.

Still lost deep in thought she went through the motions of a long established routine and poured herself a cup of coffee bean brew. At first she had abhorred the stuff, but as she grew accustomed to work here she found that for late night shifts, which at first she had in grand amount, it was a necessity and so over time she had come to tolerate the brew though by far she still preferred herself a cup of Earl Grey.

She turned around and found herself at the attention of two Nurses.

One of them was Margaret Bailey, an older women who had worked here for quite a few years and was thus part of the senior staff. Margaret was a willowy women, with a hard jaw and black hair in a bun, but her eyes were just like Dr. Sterr's: a warm brown. A woman who liked things going to order, a touch of a control freak, but who loved patients dearly and was truly sad to see them leave the premise though glad that they were healed of their ailment.

The other was Judith Foster, a small plumper women nearer her age who had blonde hair and bleu eyes, perfect arian complexion had that still played a role. A person who absolutely adored children, not being able to have her own.

Neither of the two had been in the Nurse Practitioner Movement that she herself had taken part in. The 'NPM' was started due to the implementation of the Intensive Care Units, termed ICU's, in the last few years causing the closing of most of the in-hospital nurse schools that Margaret had gone to. Stephanie being one of the few new recruits in recent years, and thus one of the five nurses in St. Andrews that was near baccalaureate-level and could thus without real hassle operate the technology. It also meant that she was one of the more busy nurses, meaning that her social life within the hospital was somewhat limited.

This position of hers didn't help in that aspect either as it was an object that brought mixed feelings amongst her colleagues: some encouraged her for it, female pride and all that, whilst others were jealous of it . A few of the older doctors simply found it preposterous that nurses were in such positions of import, nurses were a helpers not independent medicine practitioners!

These two ladies were more proud than anything about Stephanie's position, for both of them knew that neither of them could operate the machines without the chance of them endangering the patients.

"And?" asked Margaret with a tone that bespoke of hope.

She shook her head, some of her own brown hair entering her vision and sighed. "Nothing." The disappointment on the faces of the other two most likely mirrored her own.

The topic of their conversation was the latest patient, a child, that had entered the hospital a mere two weeks ago. His name was Adam Trapler and the boy was about the age of five or six though he himself hadn't confirmed it, perhaps didn't even know it. With his height of 91.44 cm and a weight of around 15 kg which were closer to the the measurements of four year old. Malnourishment was the suspected to be the reason for that as well as other forms of abuse evident in the multitude of scars that were to found on his body.

His appearance didn't make him look any better with a large mop of back hair which was not so much curly as it was messy. The effect of it being that it made his head look that much bigger and thus in total much smaller than he already was. Pale skin and green eyes had much the same effect.

If appearance wise it didn't make one feel protective of the child than his temperament certainly sealed the deal. He was silent for most of the time and stared out of the window with his horrible vision, as the local optician's check up had informed them. She wondered if he could distinguish anything but blobs though luckily the child's spectacles were in the making.

His silence, it was disconcerting; a five year old should have been happy, smiling, full of energy and talking like waterfall. It was awkward and saddening and as such many members of the medical staff, herself one of the most insistent, tried to get the boy to do exactly those things. So far no one had succeeded and the hope was that that would change with the restoring of his vision, which would in turn allow him to once again move, albeit with crutches. They had offered driving him around in a wheel chair but that was shot down fast and was one of the few times he had been vocally adamant.

She supposed though that the child had his reasons for his silence. Sometimes at night his screams would echo through the halls. No words were ever discerned, but the result of them was always tears or the evidence of them having been there. It seemed the boy had this notion that crying was a weakness and by the time one of them would arrive they would have been dried. It was a somewhat jarring realization for her since in her mind it was alright to cry as a child, in fact it was the expected reaction. She cried when watching a sappy romance for gods sake!

Most likely his silence during the day was suspected to be caused by one of three reasons: The first was internally trying to kill his nightmares; the second one was that he was ignoring the nightmares that had more than likely been his reality or fantasizing and pushing them to the furthest corners of his mind; third was the equally dark option that his silence was the only way he had avoided whatever treatment he had endured.

"No emotion or no reaction?" Asked Judith, holding a cup of what Stephanie thought to be Jasmine tea.

"He looked at me for a second, if that counts as a reaction."

"It's better than nothing." Stephanie raised her eyebrows at Judith's answer.

"Alright maybe thats optimistic, but for his sake we have to be!"

"Yes, but eventually my optimism runs out, like now." and she drank some of her coffee.

Then the oldest of the trio spoke " Maybe we've just got to give it time, as Dr. Sterr said."

"I know but its just frustrating, you know? It's not right, not natural at all. I want to help him, even if only a little." said the blonde irritably.

" For now giving him time and solitude seem to be the only things we can do for him, so lets continue doing so." said the oldest of them conviction and determination shining in her brown eyes, herself and Judith nodding curtly in agreement.

"Now have you seen the episode of..." Stephanie smiled, thoughts of a small figure seated on a bed receding from the forefront of her mind. She drank some more of the beverage that kept her going and found it comforting to have the knowledge that some things never changed.

* * *

><p>7:10 PM, 6th of July, London, Sterr's office<p>

Dr. Philip Sterr pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a deep sigh of frustration.

His desk, which was usually a mess, was now even more so. His usual habits of being untidy irritated many of his colleagues, his secretary and at home his wife. Public opinion was that that was a very 'un-docterish' thing to do, which had been coined by a young american patient of his and afterwards it had stuck. He usually handled stress very well, but the last two weeks had been surprisingly busy.

The reason as for why his desk was even more of war-zone than usual was because he had just looked through all the phone registries that were available and to his frustration in none of them the name Trapler was to be found. Damn it all, he needed that information. No breakthrough on that front and on top of that he had other patients to worry about as well, like Mrs. Martin who had an operation on the morrow.

Thoughts on what decisions to make swirled around under his grey hair.

He opened his brown eyes and looked at the telephone which was placed upon one of his file cabinets. Yes, he finally decided, the agency would have to be satisfied with the information that had been yielded, he and the staff had done what they could. Philip walked to the object he had been staring at and started dialing. It was time to take action, they had postponed it long enough.

* * *

><p>Bleu, grey, black or white. Sometimes a smudge of red, if he was lucky. A swift, bare glimpse of something as simple and romantic as the sunset. How that would for a moment alleviate his morose thoughts , but only for a moment. Light always killed the dark. No that wasn't true, it hid it though. Sometimes.<p>

It irritated him, even the sunset was set for a certain time. Beautiful as it was it was still part of the routine, monotone and repetitive. Like clockwork. Speaking of clockwork the ticking of the clock on his room's wall was mocking him, he was sure of it. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Gears whispering of his life, reminding him of what had become his reality.

Every morning he woke up and he'd think it to have been a bad dream, but then the flat smell would hit his nose, see the blob of food that didn't look much different with glasses on or off and which tasted like cardboard or something reminiscent of it.

Reminiscing, he did that a lot now too. Ironic, really. Like an old man full of regrets, yet he was for all intents and purposes a child. He thought of what had happened. Would happen. This should have only been possible in grammar with the future perfect tense! Though the future was far from perfect in any sense.

He was used to spending all day alone cooped up in a room. At the least he had light and space here, he remembered a time when even that had been sparse. A time when his name had been something uncertain.

He'd thought he didn't exist. Shouldn't exist.

Like now.

It was bound to cause problems, existing. It did back then. The punishment hadn't been fun. It had hurt. He was sure that this was going to hurt like a no-good-son-of-a-bitch somewhere down the road. He'd been called that, more than once. Believed it for while too.

Maybe it had all been a dream? Maybe this was reality. He sometimes caught himself wishing it were like that.

Caught.

He'd thought the one person who he could have lived with had been caught. That_ had_ been a dream.

He could still hear the screams. Laughter, high and cold was mixed in as well. It had mixed with him, revulsion welled up inside of him. It had been so _wrong_ and it had caused pain, like no tomorrow. He hadn't gone to tomorrow. Not yesterday either, otherwise he would have fixed his mistakes. Yesteryear, thats were he had ended up.

Whispers of the clock and its gears were not the only ones that rang in his ears. Different voices, a never ending sea of them. Older and Newer swirled. Ancient ones boomed and crashed. A cold one hissed, like water turning to steam.

Steam.

A steam engine had brought him to home once. This one, this place, too had shadows only they weren't all prevailing like before. You had to search. Like hide an seek. He'd been a seeker there. Had only lost once in all his years.

Found the glitter, but not all of it was gold. Like a ruby. Had to look into a mirror that reflected what couldn't be. He'd done so again not long ago. Or perhaps he had done it long ago.

All depended on your perspective.

The curtains, he'd taken them down. He didn't like curtains, if he ever had.

Certainly no longer.

These hadn't been black. Black wasn't anymore either. All his fault. No, it wasn't. Had all been a ruse, a trick. Tricks, trix, Bellatrix! All her fault!

He _hated _her.

The wind would carry it through the window with no curtains sometimes, the song of birds. Soft and happy it sounded. It made him smile, lifted his heart just a had always liked it, but now even more since it had saved his life once.

That song was different, better. It was more pure, more elegant, was more powerful. Majestic, that was the word to describe it and the bird that sang it doubly so.

He'd once thought the world of the birds owner, but that had shattered. Like that glass orb that that creature -for it was no longer a man- had so desired. He'd gone down along with it after that revelation. Down the rabbit hole and now he lay here in pieces. The people here were trying to mend him, but he doubted he'd ever be pieced together.

After all he supposed he'd never been complete to begin with. Those pieces had become part of a cupboard, one that didn't exist in yesteryear.

* * *

><p>11:05 AM, 9th of July, London, St. Andrews Hospital<p>

Paul Booth strode into Saint Andrews hospital through the double doors, which swung shut after him. He was a middle-aged man with black hair slicked back and mustache, which he was quite proud of. He stood 170 cm tall and was dressed in a nice suit, a bleu tie visible to all. Jacket slung over the arm which held his briefcase, for it was a the first sunny day in a long while. This summer had been very dreary, even by London standards.

A smile was on his face as he nodded to the people he passed with his black shoes clacking against the white tiles, a contrast of extremes. The age old battle of black versus white, which he liked to think of as wrong because he saw it as a symbiotic relationship; only good could exist if bad was there to contrast it against. If there was no such thing as sadness how could one know any measure of happiness? One could not help a good cause, like he was doing with his job, if there was nothing bad that had to be alleviated.

That was his paradigm.

His job as much as he enjoyed it at other times he despised it because it made him realize what people were capable of. It made him hate his fellow man. He came to loathe himself, even if it was for a moment. At the end of the day though, that would have been made obsolete by the fact that his job made him see the good and resilience of people as well. People weren't just divided into two groups, good or bad, black of white, for in this symbiotic relationship that he believed in these opposites mixed. The result was that the moral constitution of people could be found all over the of spectrum of grey, all shades possible. An eternal sin-graph so to speak that he as a child-psychiatrist and member of the Local Childwelfare ageny had to read correctly and bring to the court.

It was the first time he would be working with this particular hospital as well as the first time working with Dr. Philip Sterr, but the two of them got along amiably. Both men who wanted to make the world that they lived in the best place possible, but were aware of reality and the limits it imposed.

The case that the older man showed him was clear to him within seconds: a case of child-abuse and neglect, there was no other way about it. The file of the boy was surprisingly thin. This, he soon found was due to that it was mostly made up of theories and speculations, but very few things were concrete. An important thing that was missing being the caretakers of the boy, which if Paul were to push for a case of abuse was a crucial piece of information. He told the doctor of his concerns.

" Yes," Sterr said heavily "I am well aware of that particular part which is of such import is not being filled out. It is most concerning, is it not?"

The man looked him, sad brown eyes meeting his own grey ones. " A child should be able to confide in us adults, yet he obscenely refuses to! The boy is as silent as rock. The most we've gotten out of that child is his name, and that was on the first day. Which must have been a lucky fluke because for from the next day onwards he's been catatonic. We've continually tried to break him out of that state, but there has been no record of that happening as of yet. This is the main reason I actually had you come here Mr. Booth, for I am at my wits end and thus hope you, who has more experience with these kind of cases, would be able to perhaps get anything out of him. As for back to issue the caretakers or parents, I have looked in every phonebook available and the name Trapler is listed in none."

Paul nodded. "I'll see what I can do. Also, what exactly does the side note 'fixation on the sky' mean?"

"Ah, that. It's his catatonic state. He stares at the sky all day long and into the night until he falls asleep, which is disturbed by nightmares more often than not. This catatonic state isn't broken by people, though the exception is when a man enters his room at night, a note on that can be found within the file. Aside from that one deviation it is only broken by things of natural necessity, such as bathroom breaks and consumption of food, though he seems to be able to forgo those for large amounts of time as well." The man frowned "We've had to force him to eat a few times."

Paul nodded again, those were definitely the signs of depression that the file had listed as the boys condition.

"Very well, can I see him?"

"Of course, follow me."

Soon enough they found themselves on the third floor, and Paul went into room 305 to have his first meeting with the Adam Trapler. It went less than stellar, the boy only spoke one word the whole time. That had been at the very start of the conversation, if it could have been called that, when Paul had introduced himself to the black haired figure on the bed.

The boy had then set his unfocussed orbs on him. Those eyes were almost devoid of life and emotion, a broken spirit. Not the first time he witnessed such a look, but it was always a sad thing, especially to see in one so young.

The word he then uttered, presumably in response, in a soft voice that held no emotion was "Useless." and he returned to watching the sky.

Twenty-five minutes passed in which Paul was stoutly being ignored. He was being given the cold treatment by a five year old. It was usually him who used that technique on his younger patients to bait them into talking.

He exited the room after holding what could only be described as a monologue, and said to Philip with a fire burning in his eyes.

" I'll take it."

It would be a bloody amount of work, that was given, most of the 'bad' cases were. He would be disappointed many times as well, but he'd be damned if he didn't do this.

For matter of pride, he would make that kid talk. For righting a wrong, he'd help that kid become happy again.

* * *

><p>A person that wasn't Andrew's had entered his room today. It was a man. He knew what the man was, knew why he had come. It was useless, he told the man so. The man didn't understand and there was no <em>time<em> in which it could be explained. The man stayed though and asked questions. Too many questions, always too many questions.

He hadn't been allowed to ask them, and answering them correctly had had worse repercussions. Ignorance was bliss. Silence was golden. Rules to live by.

Rules are made to broken he'd once said. Afterwards he had learned that so are bones.

Bones are laid in a graveyard.

He'd gone to a graveyard once and he'd seen them rise, demons and the dead alike. Fire burn and cauldron bubble, something wicked this way comes! There brothers had once again found each other.

They hadn't liked it.

Its not the only family that didn't like to see each other. He knew that all too well. Pot, meet kettle. He'd met them both for a little téte-à-téte back in the day. Other times he'd have to shake hands with the stove. All at her prompting. Roses had thorns, but apparently so did Petunias.

The sky was pink, meaning that it was evening. Pink reminded him of Kittens. They had tails, tattletales. Also had claws, sharp claws that left their mark.

_I must not tell lies_.

He was always being accused of that sin. He didn't though, it was always the others who did. Lies were the product of secrets.

He _despised_ secrets. He'd been in a chamber full of them.

Secretes were obscured answers of the truth. Secrets had prices, most of the time too high a cost. He'd found some of them down in that dank and dangerous room. He'd paid for them in blood and he'd gotten them alright.

They were in Riddles though and he'd come to like those even less.

* * *

><p>Paul entered room 305 for the 5th day in a row and he had a feeling that he'd make some kind of progress today. This stemmed from the knowledge that the boy, Adam, was not as stoic as he made himself look. Like every other person he had triggers, certain words and actions that he reacted to without any conscious thought. Admittedly finding them was a bit harder than usual, but Paul was confident that he'd found one.<p>

" Hello, Adam I'm back again." he said amiably as he took a seat on a chair beside the green-eyed boy who was still staring out of the window.

" Yeah, Beautiful day innit? I'm not here to talk about the weather though, as you probably know by now. No, what were going to talk about is you, in particular your right hand."

Paul made movement to grab it, only to see the boy pull it back fast, unfocussed eyes no longer looking at the sky but meeting his grey ones.

He'd found the button, now to push it.

" I must not tell lies. An unusual scar." - the boy touched his forehead- " Did you do that to yourself?" Paul waited with baited breath for the boy to answer, but silence still reigned supreme.

" Did someone else do it, if so who? Its okay to tell me, you know. Nothing is going to happen." True to that nothing did.

Alright, time to ante this up then. In harsher tone of voice he spoke: " Unless, of course you lie about it. Are you a liar Adam? You must be, otherwise it wouldn't be written in your flesh. You, Adam are a _liar_!"

"Im not. Never was." whispered Trapler softly his eyes however burned.

So accusation worked, he'd have to keep that in mind. " Are you sure you aren't one? A liar, that is."

"I...I am not." this time it was with a tone of resignation, the fire in his eyes having gone out. Talk about a 180.

"Okay, thats good. That's good Adam. Do you tell the truth then?" he asked, once again nice.

"I want to."

"Well lets start with answering my first question, shall we? Who did that to you."

"A quill."

Paul blinked. "A quill?"

Adam nodded black hair moving along. "It was red."

Maybe a quill meant something, not the writing device. Right? "And who wrote with the quill?"

"I did." That had not been the answer he had been hoping for.

"Did you want to do this?" he asked with some trepidation.

"No. I didn't." He almost let out sigh as relief flooded him.

"Who made you do it then?"

"DADA teacher." Paul nodded and wrote that down as well. His father had done so to teach him a lesson.

" Why did your father make you do that?" Confusion filled the child's eyes.

The answer that was given was "My father is dead."

" I know." that had been a note in Adam's file, he had said that every time he was asked about his parents.

"Everyone does." and Adam returned to his habit of staring out his little window.

Paul got nothing more out him with any of the other questions, but as he left room 305 he smiled. His gut had once again led him right as progress had finally been made. He couldn't wait to tell Philip.

* * *

><p>2:15 PM, 15th of July<p>

He could see again, Merlin how he had missed this! Everything was so much brighter now, so much clearer. Better than it had _ever _been!

Eyes are the window to the soul they said. To your thoughts was more apt, he found.

It was good that the man who visited every day, Paul, didn't know how to climb through windows because his windows weren't barred.

Another room, one filled with broken toys which he could identify with, had had windows that were. He'd liked the tin soldier with the broken gun the best and he still did. They were comrades after all, he'd found out.

Walking too, even with crutches, was nice. Andrew was quite big and he liked to wander for that meant freedom.

Me, Myself and I, traversing together!

Trevor had too liked to do that, Neville was always worried that he'd be lost. Trevor never was though, he on the other hand was lost.

Were Neville and the others worried? He wanted them to be.

* * *

><p>4:28 PM, 17th of July<p>

Philip Sterr exited room 506 , which was occupied by a man who had been hit by a car, with a smile. The young business man who went by the name of John Hughes had sworn most profusely he would be more careful when crossing the road. He thought with amusement that that rant had probably been more for the man's wife's sake, who had also been in the room, than it had been for Philips.

A few steps down the hall and his already pleasant mood swelled even more as he saw a small figure on a bench on the 5th floor staring out of a window. Whatever Paul did, it was working because slowly but surely Adam Trapler was getting better. Physically as well as mentally, the latter one at a much slower pace, but that was to be expected. Those were wounds neither of them could heal, only the boy himself could do that.

The boy however had come a long way since his arrival here. He now responded more often, though silence was still his preferred method of communication, as well as that he showed that he had perhaps not lost all his innocence by exploring the hospital to his hearts content as all children did. He had even smiled when he had gotten his glasses back, and it had done both of the older men good to see the lips quirk up for once. The sky still held sway over the boy and the doctor suspected that that would be a lifelong habit. His file was getting thicker by the day as well.

As he started on the steps, leaving the figure searching the heavens for answers behind, he couldn't help but look forward to the day somewhere in the future that that file would be put to good use.

* * *

><p>The sky it reminded him of many things, like Hedwig.<p>

He missed Hedwig.

Hedwig, his owl, his familiar, his friend. White as snow, winged angel she was! She had lived in the sky, born for it. He liked to think he was too. That he too was meant to be amongst the clouds so soft, meant to live in the heavens.

His family was up there, he was sure. Up there amongst the millions and millions of stars that shone in night so dark. Perhaps they were the stars, he was. He didn't want to be one though. Had never asked for this, not for any of it! Why couldn't they understand that? Why couldn't they understand that all he had wanted, all he had ever wished for was a such a _simple_ thing? To have a family and to be normal, but it seemed even the gods themselves couldn't grant him that one reprieve.

No, instead they had granted him "the power the dark lord knows not". Why couldn't they understand that he wanted no such thing, nor any titles such as the 'Boy-who-lived' or any of the fame that came along with it? Why couldn't he be 'just Harry'? Why couldn't Harry James Potter be the mundane man? Why couldn't life ever leave him alone, that coldhearted bitch!

He was no longer Harry James Potter though was he?

Ha ha, look at that!

Why? Because he didn't exist in 1965.

Then why was it so hard for him to accept that he was no longer 'The-Boy-Who-Lived'? After all, Harry Potter was for all intents and purposes dead. He chuckled bitterly at that.

The radio, he listened to it with reverance. It told him of what was going on, he was with the program now. Not out of the loop like he had been because that led to bad things.

Things that could not be reversed.

Unrepairable. Torn and tattered. Lost and scattered.

Running.

He was running, had always been on the run. First from fists and pain, brought by both young and old. The second time from what he could be and he was sure the hat knew. Third from expectations which were stacked too high, he could not hold them up. Fourth he ran from ruby red eyes, which had spilled too much blood. Fifth and last he ran from truth and reality, for both were harsh and cold.

He should be roaring at them like a predator, not run from them like the prey. Face them right on. He knew he could because he'd done so before when he'd faced eyes that turned to stone.

The clock chimed twelve times, and just like in that hut in the sea he counted them all for it was his birthday today. He was sure that once again there would be no presents.

He was 16 now, he should get 16 them. But what would they be? What did he _want_ them to be?

"No, you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometime you might find, you get what you need!" he suddenly whispered, almost with wonder. This one line, this verse that had yet to be written, it caused him to smile which eventually turning into a full blown gale of laughter. Like a loon he howled because Harry James Potter might be dead, but Adam Trapler was not.

It was so that the early morning of the 31st of July marked the first time that Adam Trapler laughed.

* * *

><p>12:05 AM, 31st of July, Scotland, Moray, Hogwarts<p>

The Highland Games had been hosted a two weeks earlier and it had been a good year for there had been members of almost every clan, though no treu large hosts for Dufftown could only hold so many. There had been the Periwinkle of Brodie, which had showed itself treu in Stone putting twice; the ducal cap held in hand twixt two Laurel branches of Buchanan had done their motto well by letting their honour grow brighter in the Caber tosses; The reinded horse of the Duncan clan had fiercely opposed the properly erased boars head of clan Innes, though when in their cups and song this age-old fued was more than oft forgotten; The Targe had shielded the wildcat of MacBain well and in the swordplay tourney; and The dagger of Mackay had shown that they were not only only strong of hand but also in feet in Maide Laisg.

The longsword was the crest of the Macmillan's and they had shown prowess with it, though this year second place in sword tourney it was for them, but this bothered them not for their motto was to succour the unfortunate and how can one do this if one does not know what it is to be unfortunate? The few Eagles sent by clan Munro won mostly in the tossing of sheefs and bagpipes. Last but not least is the man of dagger and key who represents clan Murray which won in dancing drinking and archery.

The rambling had been held again, the winner of all at the lead which this year had been clan Mackay. The calm of night that usually hailed there had been full of laughter, booze, dance, song and swimming. The next morn after the moon had completely hidden from view and the sun shone true did high tales of werewolves having howled, mermaids in moonlight and a squid and having touched them coming back to Dufftown as happened every year.

The lakedwellers had been happy to oblige and keep folklore passing from mouth to mouth, telling their own wild tales down below the waters. Up in air however it was different story. The owlery was almost completely empty, most of its inhabitants out on a search for food and happy that the high games had ended because that one night their hunt had been disturbed, their prey in hiding from bagpipes and fire. A few avians however stayed in their tower, loverbirds the lot of them, literally.

The were sating another kind of hunger and boy what a hoot they were having!

They did not care that besides their act another one was taking place and even if they had not been busy, they still wouldn't have cared. It was something that interested their humans, not them.

For in that same tome the exact same page, which shouldn't have been altered in the first place, was once again subject to change. The recently added name of Harry James Potter flickered and then disappeared, and for a moment all was as it should be. It was broken by the appearance of the name Adam Trapler in that same spidery scrawl. It was a small change, undoubtedly, but an important one.

For names, which are seen by some to be mundane, hold a power all of their own.

* * *

><p>I really enjoyed writing this chapter, especially Harry, and I believe it is my longest one as of yet.<p>

Yes, dear old Harry isn't completely there anymore, but then who would be? He has in a total of about 48 hours seen his godfather get killed, been possessed by a deranged mad man, been told as for why his life has been as miserable as it was by the man he trusted most, and then he got transported to a different time period! Especially that possession part I find would not leave your mind wholly structured, nor is the rest exactly good for your sanity. Really, OToP is probably the book wherein I see Harry snap, and he kind of does, but J.K.R. PG-ed the hell out of it. The whole saga, actually. Also accepting you are someone else is not an easy process either, but fear not Adam/Harry will regain his bearings, the process already underway in this chapter.

Also if anyone knows what Paul's job is actually called that would be much appreciated knowledge, as my own searches haven't exactly led to anything concrete.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed it. R&R if you wish!

- S.K.


	5. Chapter 4

**AN: **Hello all ye faithfulls who waited for this chapter, here it finally is after a what I can only call an unannounced and too long hiatus, but more on that at the end. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **If I owned the Harry Potter universe there would probably be less huge plot holes in the laws of magic that J.K.R created, that's for sure.

* * *

><p><span>Doubts and Dreams<span>

_"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."_

_- Franklin D. Roosevelt_

Wednesday, August 11 1965, Moray, Scotland

The sky was a nice pink as it was evening and the reign of the sun was coming to an end. The last vestiges of this celestial being's light bounced off the high turrets of the West Tower of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and wizardry. Some of it spilled within the Headmasters office and it caught the occupant's eyes. Seeing as the circular room was the headmaster's office the occupant was no other than the current headmaster of Hogwarts, the 84 year old Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. He was in his renowned odd colored robes, today having chosen for a burgundy one on which animals of magical sort moved about. It was a particular favorite of his because he had matching socks. However, even wearing this set of clothes the long bearded, high caliber wizard was not in a very good mood.

Indeed he was a patient and hard to anger man, but he was currently quite annoyed with the paper that rested in front of him. It was the application form for the Defense against the Dark Arts post at his school and so far the only copy that he had read was the original draft and it was mid-August already. No one had applied so far because people had actually paid attention to the fates of the past professors that had held said post for the last ten years. The longest person in term had been Tobias Hellstrӧm, a curse breaker, and he'd lasted three years before having a very...unfortunate end. It had happened whilst the poor man had been teaching a class too. It had certainly brought the lesson home about the importance keeping focus when working with elementals; the man had been burned alive within the protective runes.

Elementals were rare things, elements that had been imbued with a natural reservoir of magic and they thus took a long time to form. They were considered spirits, just like ghost were, even if they were not truly sentient. They were tricky things to deal with because of their raw power, which is why a fire elemental was a good weapon against Inferi, which had been the topic of his last class. In any case this event had convinced Dumbledore as well as much of the magical community of Britain that the Curse on the subject should not be tested, because apparently the longer one spent resisting it the worse one's fate was. There was a reason it had become the third best paid post at the school.

Dumbledore sighed. He was already missing the company of Tobias; the something 40 year old had been a good man, a gifted wizard, and above all a world class curse breaker. The man had been a fanatic for obscure curses, and the one that was cast upon the DADA post had certainly caught the man's interest. Not many remembered this, but the name of the post had been 'Protective spells and Counters' for the whole of the school year of 1959-60 at this man's suggestion. It had sadly not stopped Betty Happer, the teacher that year, from becoming as blind as a bat. It was around this time that the man became seriously intrigued in it had said that as soon as he was done with his work back in South America he would apply for the job.

It would take a few years, two accidents and four DADA teachers before the Swedish man gave up on his excavations in the far Amazon and applied for the job, as he had said he would. They soon came to the definite conclusion, as he himself had already suspected, that it was an old method of curse: "A method of curse that originated in Ancient Polynesia, although it is probably much older since the Polynesians were the sailor people of the Pacific, and are in fact descendants of the Asiatic land mass. It's nasty and hard to apply because one has to be rather specific in the binding, wording and focus. In the archeology department we call these Broken Mirror Curses. This one isn't applied to a specific area but rather to a specific person, or so it would seem. It's layered too, more than once and in different styles! Albus, whoever cast this is a genius!"

That had been the thesis half a year ago, when the man had still been alive, but in the weeks before his death it had changed considerably. They had come to the startling conclusion that it was not applied to the name or a specific area, but that it had actually been applied to something that did not even have a physical form! Tom Riddle, who was indeed a lauded genius, had done the astounding: he'd not cast it on the post, but he had actually cast it upon the _decision_ of taking the post. This mind magic of it was reminiscent of the Egyptians, since they had been a people who had done the most research into the mind and soul magics. Tobias had indeed put it best when he had said: "It's like a manually castable life debt Albus!" And as all full well knew testing life debts was dangerous business; they were completely random as well as indiscriminate. Where Tom had found this vicious little gem Dumbledore didn't even begin to want to know. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.

Ten years of frustration this young man had caused him and it would continue to do so, but however frustrating the curse may be, it was Tom's complete disappearance that was far more worrying indeed. It did not bode well and the current affairs that the world at large was in wasn't all together good either; war in Vietnam, in the early 50's war in Korea, and the coup last year in Brazil. The ICW was worried about the progression of the world, as was he.

The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 had thrown the whole world, the Magical one included, in frenzy. The devastation of the London Bombings during the Second World War had still been fresh within the mind of the British Magical community, as well as the ominous warning of the Japanese delegation; " A normal bomb can be stopped by magical means if informed in time, even when it is exploding as has been shown on occasion. That is not the case for nuclear bombs; they cannot be stopped by any means, magical or otherwise. The time of us being superior to them is over." If only the British Magical Community were aware of this, but instead the Cold War was a time of heightening animosity; be this between magical and non-magical or magical and magical. The American and the USSR delegation barely tolerated each other; this had especially been the case during the Missile crisis. The removal of the missiles from Turkey, which had been kept from the public, had in fact been an emergency agreement thought up by the magical cabinets of the two super powers who had kept the Japanese warning in mind.

And these had been his first five years within the IFW, a nerve-bending political experience to be sure. It also made his agenda a much more filled book and he sighed as he remembered that he was to meet the Minister of Education about the file the man had sent a week ago. Fawkes trilled and he smiled as he saw the expression in his familiar's black eyes.

"You're right Fawkes, I shouldn't worry so much." The bird, which was seated on its usual perch, squawked and waved its left wing at the mess of paper that lay on the desk.

"Yes, I suppose that does need some cleaning up. Besides, I can relax when it is all said and done."

He put away the Defense against the Dark Arts application form and grabbed up the next closest thing. This turned out to be a rather large amount of paper work from Gringotts. He looked over his spectacles, which he had put on again some time ago, and said accusingly: "You planned this didn't you?"

The red plumaged bird looked on amusedly, if a bird can look so. The headmaster smiled, took a lemon drop and started to read the documents that were stacked upon his desk and would continue to do so even as the sun's rays no longer touched that part of the globe.

* * *

><p>Monday, August 16 1965, Borough of Islington, London<p>

The almost six year old Sirius (only 5 more days!) watched as his parents took the Floo, his father going to the Ministry to work whilst his mother was going out to meet some of her acquaintances. Reggie was in bed with the mumplemumps so Kreacher, their youngest house-elf, was out getting something that would quell the swelling. Meyer, their oldest house-elf who had helped raise his father, was watching over Reggie and keeping him company but both were probably asleep. Furthermore his tutor wouldn't come until four, and it was only eight in the morning. It was a once in a life-time opportunity.

The cowed expression he had worn after his mother's sharp words and warnings was replaced by a devious smile; it was an expression most of his cousins were familiar with and had his parents seen it they would not have left the house as they had. She'd said not to cause any trouble in the house whilst they were gone, and he would do so. He left the first landing on which the guest room was situated with its large and grand fire place, which kept them nice and cozy during the winter. He went down the staircase, and with caution avoided looking to the right wall where seven house-elf heads were mounted as they weren't exactly nice to look at. Apparently it was an honor to end up there as only the most loyal got that honor. If so, he didn't want to know what kind of fate a disloyal house elf was subjected to; seriously, who looked _forward_ to being beheaded?

He arrived on the ground floor which consisted of the main hall way, which was very narrow, the dining room, which was to be found on the right side near the staircase, and the door at the end of the hall that led down to the kitchen. Technically that was a place he was forbidden from entering, but he had stolen a cookie from it on more than one occasion. The Black Heir went to the right, towards the door that led towards the outside. His parent almost never went out that way, and for him and Regelus to tag along was even rarer.

In his short recollection it had happened only a handful of times and every time they'd have to hurry. His mother hadn't let go of their hands or let them out of her sight. She would always hold the same speech; he could recite it from memory by now. "I don't want you two near the Muggles, you hear me Sirius?! No exploring and mind if you do there will be serious consequences! It's no time for your name jokes! Orion, you talk some sense into him!"

He knew though that it was only for his own safety; he knew very well that Muggles didn't treat little wizards nicely. "Boys, they're jealous of our power; they know that they are below us! That is why they do terrible things to wizards, when they find them, especially young ones who can't defend themselves." The look his mother gave whilst saying this was always pointedly looking at them both and her brown eyes would gleam. Bellatrix could do it better though. Then she'd continue: "Now listen well, for this is the story of Terry the Terrible Muggle. Once upon a time there lived a happy wizarding family…" It was his one of his favorite bed-time stories, especially since it scared Reggie.

Sirius was now in the beginning part of the hall, where the coat rack and the Troll leg umbrella stand were to be found. The Troll leg was a big ugly thing and he wondered if his mother's taste was truly as impeccable as she made it out to be. He grabbed his overcoat and looked down at his clothes one more time. He was wearing his least prestigious clothes; he knew more than well that wearing nice clothes, especially robes, attracted attention. Even if they were his least prestigious, the sweater and the beige pants were far removed from the kind of clothes that the Muggles wore. Oh, well, it would have to do.

He put on the coat and walked over to the door mat that was on the inside, it was a plain brown but the bristles moved if one stepped on it. He lifted it and smiled as he felt the bristles move against his fingers. His smile grew as he lifted up the key that lay under it. Uncle Alphard had put it there: "Muggles do this so that if they ever lose a key they are always sure to find one. It's pretty smart of them, I must say. See, I lose my keys all the time and your mother would kill me were I to lose this one so here it is, but don't tell her that either. If she finds out I used a Muggle way to make sure I don't lose my key I'd be sure to never hear the end of it! It's our secret, yes?" and their secret it had stayed indeed. Who knew that his crazy uncle's scheme would work out in his favor, really there was a reason Alphard was his favorite uncle! He put the brass key in the inside pocket of his coat, put the mat back down and exited through the great oak door that no Muggle could see.

He'd expected his adventure to be cut short as soon as he opened the door; an alarm to go off or Kreacher to appear at his side but none of those happened. He left the house and was on the street with no one the wiser. He turned right and walked slowly, looking around every once in a while. When a minute passed and he felt the soft autumn breeze tussle his black locks he realized that he was free to do what he will for the first time in a long, long while; he was free to play by his rules now. As soon as he realized this a dazzling smile, which years in the future would make many a girl smitten, appeared on the child's face and could not be removed by anything. He ran down Grimmauld Place and for fun took a right. Sirius now ran on Arvon Road and had buildings to his right whilst he had green to his left. He'd never even walked here with his parents; they always walked to the other side of Grimmauld place. He liked the running, like he could do at Uncle Alphard's countryside house, besides running was good exercise if one wanted to become a Quidditch player which he most decidedly did!

Eventually the young boy came to a three way; he could go forward, right and left. He let fate decide and started turning with eyes closed and finger pointing. After 10 turns he stopped and his hand was pointing to the left and so he went that way.

Sirius was no longer running, he was walking confidently down the road soaking up everything that there was to see. His back was straight but he swaggered. The swaggering was his own touch to the dignified walk that had literally been beat into him by his mother; he could still feel the shocks that would hit his back were it slouched. So far he hadn't seen anyone, but he had seen the buildings and he had concluded that many looked the same, except for the ones on his right at the moment which were as tall and wide as the Black Summer house showing that they were situated in an affluent neighborhood. The Black heir found it fitting that they were called The Crescent Mansions.

He kept going straight down the road, which he suspected to be called Crescent Road towards the greenery ahead, past the row of trees that guarded the field and grinned as he walked onto the green grass. The field was large and stretched both sides of the road. Fields, the boy had long decided, were for running. He whooped as he began to run, not caring that the few people that were in the park looked at him. He was Sirius the Third of The Noble and Most ancient House of Black, people were supposed to look at him!

Arriving on the other side he took a few minutes to gain his breath and started running back. Half way across the field it seemed he'd gained two followers. One was his age, and she had a competitive gleam in her blue eyes. The other was a boy who was younger than Regelus, he valiantly tried to keep up. Through jostling locks of hair he looked back at the blonde girl and to his dismay saw that she was gaining on him; he narrowed his grey eyes and increased his speed a bit, although this was a very tiring and laboring affair. Finally they reached what he thought to be Crescent road and found out that the two of them were tied, the younger boy not too far behind. All of them collapsed on the grass and looked up at the sky with megawatt smiles on their faces. Huffing and puffing, red in the face they lay there under a relatively blue sky for autumn in London.

The girl had apparently regained her breath as she asked; "So, why you running?"

"Because I like to." he informed her. He looked at her; she was pale though her cheeks were still pink, had blonde hair, which reached her shoulders but went no further - meaning that they had the same lenght of hair - and blue eyes. Her chin was round and childish and she was about his size. She was wearing the blue pants called jeans, which his mother described as "Those badly manufactured mass-produced products of the Muggles! There's nothing unique about it!" He liked them though, and he certainly found the brown coat with bears on them fitting to the girl.

"Well if you like running so much, why'd you almost lose a girl then?" she asked with a teasing lilt, the gleam back in her eyes.

It was a declaration of war, this was! "I did just run the whole field twice, you know, and you barely caught up to me."

"Yeah, yeah. My sister is still faster than you!" said the boy; he had the same blue eyes, but was brown-haired

"We'll see about that." said Sirius with a smirk. "Who's up for a race to see who is truly the fastest?"

"You're on…"

The question hung in the air, he answered. "Sirius, and you are?"

"Emily," she said "and that there is my younger brother Michael."

"Alright, Michael, you count down from three and say go. On go, we run, yes?" Both nodded.

They got up and stood ready.

"Three." said Micheal.

"Two." They tensed up.

"One." They shared a look.

"Go!" and they shot off.

That is how much of the morning would pass, the three of them racing, playing tag or any other game that children can play on a nice autumn day in a park. He met the mother, who even gave him some water to drink and who said: "Thank you for playing with them. We just moved here from Manchester and it's nice for them to meet someone their age." At 10 'o clock the family of three had to leave and the young Black decided to go explore the area some more. They said their goodbyes and Emily asked him, with a hopeful smile: "Will I see you here again?"

He answered with that same hope "Maybe."

Down Crescent road he swaggered as the three others were crossing the field to their new home. With pleasure he heard the crisp crunch of dead leaves underfoot for it was validation for being outside. Suddenly he stopped, realizing that he had had contact with his first Muggles and had lived to tell the tale. He smirked, they were not aware he was wizard! His disguise had worked!

At the end of the road he found out that it was actually called Highbury Crescent and not Crescent road. The next road was called Highbury Place, which in name didn't interest him much. No, what interested him was the building that stood to the left of him. It was a church, a relatively new one from the look of it. He had heard the horror stories of the Church with its religion and the witch burnings it led to. His father, who was a man of few words, had said something important to him after his tutor had taught him about the Dark Ages: "Son, there is no such thing as God, but there is a higher power. That higher power is magic and everyone respects power. Therefore everyone respects magic."

Sirius was known to be reckless and hotheaded, but even he knew when to not overstep certain bounds, and entering the church was just that. All he would do was look at it from a far. It wasn't that large, had a white cross on top and was for the rest made of red bricks. It had a round window at the top of the tower and no bells as far he could see. It was all in all rather boring, and Sirius couldn't help but feel a little bit disappointed. He had expected a church to feel more sinister, to show off its dark history but all it did was look dull.

With a sigh he turned to the other direction, lest he be tempted to actually enter the building to see if the inside was as dull as the outside. On and on he walked from one street to another. He passed houses, looked on with interest as car passed and was even more surprised the no one even looked at him, for there were indeed people on the street. He didn't want to get lost though and eventually made his way back. He lay down for quite a while on the field he had run on with Emily and looked as the clouds passed, trying to find forms in them to pass his boredom but stay outside as long as possible. He didn't know how long he lay there, but eventually he just needed to move and he ran all the way back to his house. He stood in front of the door with the gold knocker in the form of a Raven, the bird that was to be found on their family crest. If one looked closer at the knocker one would read the family motto: "Toujurs pur."

This reminded him that they would have their session in French today and he sighed. He had been learning French since he was four because their ancestry went all the way back to France during the Middle Ages. He took out the key, put it in the hole and turned it. The door opened with an audible click and fast as he could he entered the house. There was no one in the hall and he grinned. He put the key back under the mat, hopefully it would stay as undisturbed as it had before. He took of his shoes, hung his coat up and then proceeded to tiptoe down the length of the hall. He entered the dining room to check the time because next to the dresser which held the family china stood a grandfather clock. It read 12:30 and this put him at ease, he had spent four and a half hours outside and had another four inside to create a lovely alibi.

He went up four flights of stairs and entered the room on the left; it was his little brother's. As he had predicted both of its occupants were well and truly asleep. He wanted to wake them up, but knew that his mother would pitch a fit did he do that; the mumplemumps made sleep a hard to acquire thing. Even now he heard his brother mumble. With a sigh he made his way back to his room and grabbed up the sports magazine that he had yet to finish. This would be how Kreacher would find him. Kreacher was fuming for the time consuming visit he had had to make to the bank before being able to purchase the medicine, and Sirius was amused to no end at the muttering of the elf about "Stupid Goblins."

The rest of the day passed relatively normal and by the end of it, as he lay in bed that night he couldn't help but think of Emily and her family. He wondered if Muggles were really bad as his parents had made them out to be. He shrugged and went to sleep as easy as he always did, it didn't really matter. But it would in the next few years, and so the first seed of doubt was placed within the mind of the Black Heir.

* * *

><p>Thursday August 19 1965, London<p>

It was a good day, if a slightly cloudy although Philip Sterr wasn't fully aware of that since he was working. His office was silent except for the scribble of a pen, the occasional shuffling of papers and the ticking of his watch and clock, which hung on the right wall above a file cabinet. This rhythm, which had been going strong for the past hour was interrupted by office door being swung open. The grey-haired doctor's brown eyes shot up from the file to see Paul Booth, the child psychiatrist from the London Child welfare agency standing in the newly created opening.

The man had his black hair smoothed back as usual, but the expression was not the relaxed one the man often wore. The man's eyebrows, which were thinner than the man's mustache, were leaning downwards making his grey eyes a lot sharper. The one dimple which resided on the right check was absent as well. It seemed like there would be no idle chatting before they started to talk work this time around.

He sighed "What's the meaning of this Paul?"

"We have a problem Philip. Come along if you would." And so the two men started hurrying down the halls which were all but a second home to Philip. "So, what problem's got you almost knocking down my door? Is one of my patients dying?" he asked worriedly.

"No, thankfully nothing so morbid but something equally troubling."

"And this would be?"

"That one of your patient's, and in fact one of mine as well, is gone."

His brown eyes widened. "Are you absolutely positive about that, he's not somewhere else in the building?"

Paul grimaced. "No, he's not. I thought the exact same thing as you, but I checked all his favorite spots and he's not in any of them."

"Well with that leg of his he can't have gotten too far, he still needs crutches!"

"Philip, I think you have forgotten, as well as I did that this was the boy who walked away from his abusive home on a leg that was broken in two places. I think an almost healed leg is nothing in comparison."

As they entered room 305 Philip replied: " As true as that may be he is still a boy of 5, how can he leave unnoticed! Why leave at all?"

"Well to answer your first question, he's a small malnourished boy of 5 that rarely speaks. He can be inconspicuous if he wants. The answer to your second question, as unsatisfactory as it is, will be the note he left us on the night stand."

He grabbed the little folded piece of paper that lay next to a children's book and opened it. There in a small and rigid hand stood the following.

_Dear everyone,_

_Thanks you all for your help, I will never forget it. I leave because this is best for everyone. Don't try to find me._

_Sincerely,_

_Adam_

Paul smiled knowingly. "Doesn't tell you anything does it?"

He sighed. "No, it doesn't. Well written though." and the child psychiatrist laughed.

The doctor walked to the window and looked over head to the clouds like the boy had often done. " Paul, what did he mean by 'the best for everyone'?"

The black-haired man joined him and answered. " Only he and the clouds know that doctor."

"You think we'll ever hear of him again?"

"Yes, I think we will. But we'll never see the child again, we'll see the man he will have become."

"You know Paul, I think he was never a child to begin with."

The mustachioed man sighed. "That's the sad truth of it."

And so looking at the sky both men mourned for the jading of a young soul

* * *

><p>Friday August 21 1965, London<p>

It was raining as it was won't to do in London. Adam Trapler, who had a small plastic bag with some candy bars he'd nicked from the nurses office, was sitting on the steps of the Victoria Memorial, in front of Buckingham Pallace. It was the first time he was there, but the small boy was starting to wonder if he had made the right decision after all. He had left the hospital because of a warning that had resounded in his head in the voice of Hermoine Granger: "Awful things happen to wizards who've meddled with time. We can't be seen."

He'd been seen, that was a problem wasn't it? So now he was running away so that less people could see him and so that all the people who were helping him didn't get attached to someone who hadn't been there before. That wasn't truly the reason he'd run away though, he'd run away because he was afraid as to what would happen to him if he meddled, even accidentally. In fact he was afraid he'd already unintentionally meddled. He had run away because he wanted to live; he wanted to enjoy this clean slate he'd been given! Merlin he was afraid; if pronouncing one letter in a spell wrong could land a buffalo on you, what could breaking the laws of space and time do to you? What was the price? As he pondered this he started paling because he thought of something that had been bothering him for as long as he had been in 1965.

The thing that had been bothering him since 1965 was the fact that he'd felt tired and empty at times for no reason. He hadn't felt like that since his early days at the Dursleys, the ones he scarcely remembered and didn't want to remember. He however did remember, and he had made his theories about how he'd come to feel like that in his second year. In your second year you go into the easy theory of magic and your magic cores; what they are and how they grow and how having no magic leads to a wizards death.

"Our own magic is by no means limitless. In fact, think of us like wands, we each have a core and this core consists of a certain amount of magic. The chakra system, which was developed by the Buddhist Hevajra Tantra around the 18th century, is the oldest mapping of our magical core. It can be compared to the circulatory system in shape and function and in fact runs closely to it. See it as the leylines of the human body if you will. […]The fact is that just like with the circulatory system, if it runs out it is more often fatal than not. Magical depletion is serious business and can be compared to a large amount of blood loss; one will feel weak and lethargic following it. The complete removal and draining of a magical core is possible, through means that will not be mentioned here. It is almost always fatal, though there are cases of becoming a squib though these are far and few in between."

- An excerpt from _"An introductory Guide to Magic"_

There were various ways to test how one's magical core was doing, the most often used and successful one being meditation. Harry Potter however had created his own way of devising it. To his surprise in his third year he found that he could do a _lumos_ wandlessly (he was still working on the wordless bit though) and he had concluded that having used it so often at the Dursleys that it became instinct to him; to twist his magic that particular way.

He brought his hand in front of his face and whispered _Lumos. _Nothing happened, no light hovered in his palm. His arm was shaking something terrible but he tried it again. He felt a slight warmth for a second, but it was gone the next and the result was the same as before. He stared at his hand with a look of comprehending horror and tears prickled in his eyes. Mechanized he took out a bar, ate it and tried it again, though he barely got the word out of his mouth. And nothing happened. Tears fell once again down his face, though the rain hid it this time around.

The price had been his magic.

* * *

><p>Wednesday August 26 1965, Valley of Mexico, Mexico<p>

The air was hot and sultry, though less so than when it had been day and the buzzing of mosquitoes was there as always. The wheels of the car sped across the asphalt, and the dry caked ground on either side of the road was but a blur. Only the headlamps of the speeding vehicle lit up the road, as it was a night of a new moon. This darkness thus prevented Raúl Garza, who was driving, and his partner, Francisco Javier Rios, from seeing the snow covered caps of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, which was locally known as the Sierra Nevada. These mountains surrounded The Valley of Mexico, a highlands plateau with a grand and lavish magical history. It housed the five great lakes, Zumpango, Xaltoca, Xochimilco, Chalco, and the largest, Texcoco, all which were now dry and dead like the three grand cultures they had kept alive. These three grand cultures were none other than the Teotihuacan, the Toltec and the Aztec.

Teotichuacan isn't so much the name of the civilization as that of the city, which at its height in 450 AD had housed a population of over 100,000 people; it was speculated to be a multiethnic state. Its marvelous style of architecture had been very advanced for its time, the Toltec and Aztecs had copied it, and as it had once lured archeologist from all over the world now it lured many a tourist to it. Its ruins lay 30 miles north East of Mexico City, which had once upon a time been the Aztec city of Technoctilan, and it was the destination of the two 30 year old men.

They were neither tourists nor archeologists, but men with a need for money. They were petty men who were addicted to drugs, but had no money to pay the drug lords they dealt with. They'd been sufficiently threatened, the deaths of their lovers and family hanging over their heads if the money didn't show up. It would have been much simpler had they chosen a non-magical drug lord, but they had not (magical drugs _were_ magical after all) and therefore they could not copy the money. It was a rather precarious situation the two had landed themselves in.

Seeing as neither of them had been born in a well off family - meaning that they were not full-blooded - they didn't have much of a magical education and could not apparate. Thus the reason they were using a non-magical way of transport. Even if they had had a magical way of transport they'd rather not; it was not inconspicuous. Besides, being magical was one of the main reasons that they had a car to begin with; the Mexican Economy was not doing well and with the upcoming '68 Olympic Games being held the government had issued the Tenencia Vehicular, the reissued Diaz car ownership tax, in order to pay for all the facilities that this event needed.

All through the drive neither of them spoke, but the music that came from the radio filled the silence and put them more at ease. Finally they arrived at the gates of the ancient city and the two tanned men stepped out of their vehicle.

"You sure about this?" asked Raúl.

Brown eyes that he knew so well stared him in the face and Francisco replied, "It's the only option we've got, it's worth a try. Worst come to worst we get a pot, pack our bags and get the hell out of Mexico City but if we succeed we'll be richer than our entire block combined!"

The men who were practically brothers smiled, nodded to each other, and started walking. They weren't worried about getting in to the city because that was the easy part; there was no protection to speak of. No, they were worried about entering the temple of Quetzalcoatl, the Flying Serpent, which had never been fully excavated and mapped out due to the many magical traps that were present.

Quetzalcoatl was the Aztec name for the Feather Serpent god, a Mesoamerican deity that had been worshipped by all of the grand cultures of that time. However what not many knew was that it was based upon an actual magical being, the Occamy. The Ocammy is a plumed serpent with legs, which can reach to be a length of 15 feet, and is rather violent in nature. It was not the Ocammy the two men were after but its eggs, which were made up of the most pure and soft silver. They were rare in Mexico nowadays, most having died of the smallpocks that the Spaniards had brought along with them like more than 3 million Aztecs. They were still here though, even if the largest population of Ocammy was to be found in India and the Far East. Legend even had it that Quetzalcoatl was not an imagined deity, but rather the largest and oldest Ocammy alive; it was supposedly as long as the Avenue of the Dead, upon which the two men now walked, perhaps even longer. If they found the eggs of that beast they'd be set for life, though they'd rather not meet the beast itself; Occamy's were rather well known for being the most protective of nest mothers.

Francisco walked out first, being the one with a wand, as Raúl's brother had inherited the wand that was passed down the Garza family. Raúl was not far behind, with a flashlight in hand, but not lit since it was for when they were in the temple, it was better to walk out here in the dark than in there. Both of the men were happy that the Temple of Quatzalcoatl was close to the entrance, and not at the end of the Avenue of the Dead like the Temple of the Sun was. They'd turned left a while back and were now walking through what had once been a gathering square in front of the temple from which once they could have seen the sacramental services that were held every so often to please the Feathered Serpent God. On the left of the square the massive shadow of the pyramid loomed up.

Fearlessly the two men moved on across the paved ground that was the square. Eventually they stood in front of the building that had stopped many an archeologist from finding its inner secrets. They weren't archeologists though and so they faithfully and with almost naught a care went up the age old staircase that had brought priests as well as tourists up to the top of the pyramid, where its entrance was to be found. Neither of them expected anything to happen, after all the traps were only deeper inside the temple, not the outside where tourists loitered. Neither of them made it inside the ceremonial chamber for when they reached the top both of them died. Two pairs of brown eyes widened and the last thing the two soul brothers ever saw was red.

* * *

><p>Time unknown, destination unknown<p>

It was dark except for a small pinprick of light that he held in hand, but even that was hazy. He sometimes caught a glimpse of the walls, ancient and cracked with vegetation growing every which way. Mostly he walked, though sometimes he just drifted in complete darkness with no sense of direction, only to find himself walking again. Slowly he noticed, as it was the only thing he saw on this trek in darkness, that the vegetation was lessening, showing designs of snakes, reptiles and other beings, even humans. Sometimes he smirked for no reason, and the light would change color ever so briefly; when he was walking it was white, but when he smirked it could be any color ranging from the most outrageous purple to the lightest shade of green.

When he walked he had a purpose, there was nothing to distract him; no noise, no nothing. The silence and focus were nice, it was a relief. Yes, the silence was golden. He was just walking to somewhere, wherever that was. He liked the walking much more than the drifting because when he was drifting there was no silence. Voices surrounded him; some whispered, some laughed, some cried and others shouted, but in the end all of them were indistinguishable. He tried finding them, to shut them up, but they were ever moving. Worst of all there was no light. Pure and utter darkness kept him company and he didn't even have the comfort of having ground under his feet, or a body for that matter. It was disconcerting to have no body, to not feel anything at all. If this is what it was like to be a ghost then he understood why Sir Nicholas had said very few chose that fate.

Ah, he was walking again. Good. He saw the corner turn up and was about to turn left when his body stopped. Well, that was new. He cocked his head and to his infinite surprise heard rather than saw a change; there was a low thrumming in the air. He smirked and walked around the corner. Had he been in control of his facial expressions his eyes would have widened, but since he was not the smirk stayed right in place. There in front of him hung a shimmering that he had never seen before in his life, and he had seen some things in his short life.

What it reminded him most of was a _protego _except that it was not a light transparent blue. Well, it was transparent but it certainly wasn't blue. You had to pay attention to see it, but streaks of yellow and red went up and down, and across width of the narrow hall. His hands started moving and he started speaking, chanting, though all he heard was the soft, low thrumming. With every moment that passed the shimmering became clear and clearer until weaving pattern of many, many yellow, red and even green lines could be seen. If one squinted one could see that the intersecting lines made designs, though their meaning was not known to him. The clearer it became the louder the thrumming, until it had become all-encompassing. His hands went up, left and flicked. Out came a thin pure white beam that hit the middle and it stilled, silence for a second, and then started melting away with a high pitched hissing. It was an oddly enchanting sight, and yet once again the expression on his face was a satisfied smirk.

He started moving again, and he felt content because his mind was once again beset with purpose and there was blessed silence, although he could now hear the sound of his feet meeting the steps of the stairs that had hidden behind the shimmering. Finally he arrived at the bottom of the stairs, to find another passage, though this one was slightly narrower than the ones he had been passing through before. Also what he had noticed on his descent was that there was no vegetation at all. He took a step, only to see no more.

He cursed and his voice resounded in the darkness, "Damn it!" He was drifting again, and now his own echoing voice was added to the cacophony of others, as had happened before. Somehow the voices had become louder, as if they wanted to overcome his voice. He tried to overcome them in return, but his shouts of "Shut up!" were drowned out every time, and even as loud as they had become they were still garbled and utterly indistinguishable. Soon enough he gave up and let it wash over him and perhaps it was his silence they desired for quite quickly he could see again.

He was glad to feel his body again, and to his surprise he heard not only the clacking of his feet hitting the stone floor but also the rustling of his clothes and even the puff of his breathing. He was still walking, with the same powerful, calm stride. The color of the light had changed, again only briefly, this time it had been a bright blue. He walked and stopped this time standing in front of a door. The wood was not familiar, but the designs were and this filled him with trepidation; snakes. These were detailed, all scales accounted for and the eyes were painted green. He wanted to turn around, but his body would not listen.

He hated his mind for conjuring this up for making what so far had been by his standards a pleasant dream into what was no doubt to be a memory. He didn't want to enter the Chamber of Secrets! His mouth started moving though and out came a hissing, a hissing he understood all too well. _"Nës."_ and open the door did. Slowly the grand old doors croaked open to reveal darkness. He went forward, light and all, through the doors only for them to slam shut and for his light to go out. Terror seized him, he frowned. With a flick and a few garbled words there was a bright red light floating in the air, making the shadows flee to the corners of the room. He was so glad he could conjure up light again!

It was a hall, grand in structure; high ceilings and a polished stone floor with many a markings on the same smooth walls. It, too, was worn with age, though much less than the hallways had been and far to the front he saw the beginning of steps as wide as the door behind him.

He stood still, waiting and listening for any sound; there was none. He walked forward slower now, even more alert and focused than before; the feeling of adrenaline pumping through his body. This was very reminiscent of the Chamber, except there were no pillars to be found. What kind of trick was his imagination playing now?

Twenty three slow and powerful strides later he stood in front of the steps. Nothing had happened whilst he had traveled across the smooth tiled floor and with bigger strides he went up the steps, to where he would likely find Salazar's head, mouth gaping open wide. He did not, what he found was another set of doors, smaller and much more lavish than the ones before. The wood looked like it hadn't aged a day and the metal eerily reflected the red light. He hissed, the door trembled, but did not open. He frowned a second time.

He hissed again, louder this time and it shuddered and shook, but yet it did not open. He stepped back, looking at the door again, when a crack appeared on the wood. He smiled and hissed " _Ha'ce_", come. The doors and parts of the walls were blown to smithereens. Nothing hit him; a _protego_ prevented that from happening. Debris and dust was in the air, yet he had no trouble breathing. He wanted to run, but his body once again refused to listen. Damn dream, he didn't want to face the Basilisk again!

He got his wish in that regard.

A sound came out of the dark gaping hole that was now present where two lavish doors had once stood, but it wasn't a hiss. Two cracks and a guttural groan were what broke the silence. The red light was still in the air, about a meter in front of his right shoulder. Out of the dark came a humanoid form, slowly it lumbered and its groans were guttural and downright terrifying. He wanted to run, oh so badly but as was the case earlier it refused to cooperate; now he hated the single minded purpose that had set him so at ease earlier. With a flick the red light sped forward and hit the being, becoming engulfed in flames. He felt a smirk grow on his face as the shadows danced along the smooth tiles as the fire writhed. No more groans, good and the fire was snuffed, becoming a red ball of light once more. Yet, the being was still there, lumbering forward as if there had been no fire at all. With a flick the ball sped forward to it, but this time it moved its arms and batted it aside as if it were nothing. Its eyes were visible now, in the newly created darkness, they were a burning blue.

"**Ticmictia. Ticmictia**." it spoke.

A voice, which he knew he had heard somewhere before was present beside the guttural one that kept repeating the same word over and over. The new voice was out of whack, just like the voices that he had heard whilst drifting, but as the red light returned and he saw the being, which had been steadily moving forward.

One word stood out from the rest, clear as day: "Homunculus." What the word meant he didn't know, what he did know was that the being was a walking corpse; its skin was parched and brown, stretched across the bones which were easily visible. Its mouth, which had sharp teeth moved as it spoke and its hollow eyes were filled with an otherworldly blue light. His hands moved and the garbled voice spoke, and out shot a black stream. It hit the corpse in the chest, and a hole as big as its head appeared. It looked down for one moment, turned it head back up and its eyes were a lot more focused than before, brighter.

"**Nechtolinia**…" it uttered.

The skin which had been incinerated before his eyes was slowly growing back; well that explained why the fire had done nothing.

"**NICTOLINIZ**!" it shouted in rageand the whole chamber shook and the ceiling cracked. He too was rattled with fear.

It shot forward, mouth gaping open, showing off its teeth. The closer it came though, the more everything changed. The chamber walls were expanding, and turning into a new, smoother, black stone. The altar, which he had seen glimpses of whilst the beast had burned had turned into a material all too familiar to him. The guttural shout of rage was becoming less guttural and all the more understandable. The beast's skin had become a pale white, and the burning blue that its eyes had been turned into a burning grey. Hair dark as night was growing on its scalp and as a final touch the voices which he had heard whilst drifting returned with a vengeance. It was still a corpse, the raging and screaming corpse of Sirius Black. It clamped on to him with an iron grip and started to pull.

"Why did you leave me, Harry?! Why did you leave me to die?! You didn't even kill Bellatrix! So now, come! Join me! Join us!" The other voices said the same "Join us! Join us!" and ever so slowly he was being pulled towards the flapping Veil.

"No, Sirius." He whispered. "No."

He struggled with all his might as the voices continued, adamant, but the pulling became even harder to resist than it already was. It came closer and ever closer.

"Yes, Harry. Yes!" came the voice of Sirius Black's corpse. Its tone was insane, like Bellatrix's voice.

"NO!" He shouted and all the voices went silent. "I did not leave you, not to die!" regret filled his voice. He schooled his features and put steel and authority in his voice when all he wanted to do was curl up: "I cannot join you for I am no longer Harry Potter. I am Adam Trapler and this is but a dream."

"So be it…" came the voice of the corpse and the others carried it as well. The cacophony resounded whilst everything was fading; the corpse had let him go too. He walked away from the Veil and smiled tentatively, he was becoming good at defeating his own demons. These were, after all, his dreams. "**So be it," **he turned around just in time to suddenly see the corpse shoot forward, a deranged and dangerous expression on its face. The guttural voice had returned **"TRAITOR****!" **Burning eyes not of this world looked him into the eyes with hate and spite and his blood filled the fading dreamscape.

With a scream Adam Trapler woke up, heart pounding a mile a minute. He was shaking and felt a droplet of cold sweat travel down his spine. A sound, probably a rat that lived in this abandoned apartment moved but the boy fell over in fright. That had been too real; the smell of death and sulfur had hung above him as his godfather's corpse had killed him brutally. This nightmare, it didn't make any sense. He hadn't had any like it before and he hoped that it was the only one he would ever have. For the rest of the night he didn't catch a wink of sleep because all that he could think of were walking corpses that killed the living.

* * *

><p>The language that the homunculus speaks is Nahuatl, the language of the Nahaua people, indigenous people of Mexico and El Salvador. The translations are as follows:<p>

Ticmictia: we kill it

Nechtolinia: He causes me pain

Nictoliniz: I will abuse him/I will cause him pain

Hello Everyobdy,

Seeing as real life (graduating and all that), my binge-wathcing and sheer writers block got in the way my writing was kind of put on hold. I knew exactly what to write for this chapter but it would simply not come onto the paper, or when it did not the way I wanted it to. I mostly thank Dumbledore, who I felt very comfortable writing, and Wikipedia for finally bringing my inspiration back. Anyway, the next chapter should be on the way a looooooooooooooooooot sooner than this one. In fact my goal is to crank it out in two weeks, as well as keep it this length. Also if anyone wants to become the beta for this, as well as the person who kicks my ass if I don't reach my timetable goals would be welcomed with open arms. So whoever wants that job, PM me. Anyway, I appologize once again for the immense delay.

Thank for reading guys,

S.K.


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